Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

JOHANNESBURG — Former South African President Nelson Mandela’s condition deteriorated to “
critical” yesterday, the government said, two weeks after the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader was
admitted to a hospital with a lung infection.

A government statement said President Jacob Zuma and the deputy leader of the ruling African
National Congress, Cyril Ramaphosa, visited Mandela in his Pretoria hospital, where doctors said
his condition had gone downhill in the past 24 hours.

“The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that
Madiba is well-looked-after and is comfortable,” it said, referring to him by his clan name.

Mandela, who became South Africa’s first black president after historic all-race elections
nearly two decades ago, was rushed to a Pretoria hospital on June 8 with a recurrence of a lung
infection, his fourth hospitalization in six months.

Until yesterday, official communiques had described his condition as “serious but stable,”
although comments last week from Mandela family members and his presidential successor, Thabo
Mbeki, suggested he was on the mend.

Since stepping down after one term as president, Mandela has played little role in the public or
political life of the continent’s biggest and most-important economy.